Multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS for short) is a communications technology for simultaneously sending same data to multiple user equipments (UE for short) by using multiple base stations. The MBMS communications technology is mainly applied to a Long Term Evolution (LTE for short) wireless communications network. MBMS service data is transmitted by using a multimedia broadcast multicast service single frequency network (MBSFN for short) subframe.
Generally, data of a service is referred to as service data, data transmitted in an MBSFN manner is referred to as MBMS service data, and a service to which the MBMS service data belongs is referred to as an MBMS service. When traffic of MBMS service data is larger than traffic that the MBSFN subframe can bear, a part of the MBMS service data is discarded.
To avoid discarding MBMS service data, a part of the service data may be transmitted in another manner, such as in a unicast manner. Therefore, the UE needs to be notified in advance that transmitting the part of the service data in the MBSFN manner is to be suspended.
The UE cannot be notified in a timely manner by using the existing solution for notifying the UE in advance.